1. Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) communications. More specifically, the disclosed embodiments relate to technique for reducing round-trip times (RTTs) for TCP communications.
2. Related Art
Network links such as wireless access points, cell towers, and/or routers may be shared by a number of network-enabled electronic devices such as personal computers, laptop computers, mobile phones, tablet computers, portable media players, digital media receivers, printers, and/or video game consoles. To manage network traffic to the electronic devices, the network links may reduce the flow of packets to the electronic devices, reorder the packets, and/or drop the packets. Senders of the packets may also adjust the rate of transmission of subsequent packets based on packet errors, losses, and/or delays, thus lifting congestion at the network links and facilitating sharing of the network bandwidth by the electronic devices.
On the other hand, the electronic devices may lack the ability to influence the transmission of packets from the senders. Instead, the electronic devices may only receive the packets at the rate at which the packets are transmitted by the senders and/or network links. Moreover, the use of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to transmit data from a sender to an electronic device may require the acknowledgment of each TCP segment received by the electronic device before the sender transmits another TCP segment to the electronic device. Such fluctuations in the throughput of network links between the sender and the electronic device, combined with the overhead and/or delay associated with acknowledgment of TCP segments, may cause the electronic device to experience increased latency on the network and, in turn, reduced performance. Consequently, network-based data transmission may be improved by managing and/or expediting TCP communications among network-enabled devices.